Frederick Bartlett - The Wall Street Girl

She, on the other hand, appeared fresher than she had yesterday at noon. Her eyes were brighter and there was more color in her cheeks. Don had never seen much of women in the forenoon. As far as he was concerned, Frances did not exist before luncheon. But what experience he had led him to believe that Miss Winthrop was an exception–that most women continued to freshen toward night and were at their best at dinner-time.

“Mr. Pendleton.” It was Eddie. “Mr. Farnsworth wants to see you in his office.”

Farnsworth handed Don a collection of circulars describing some of the securities the firm was offering.

“Better familiarize yourself with these,” he said briefly. “If there is anything in them you don’t understand, ask one of the other men.”

That was all. In less than three minutes Don was back again at Powers’s desk. He glanced through one of the circulars, which had to do with a certain electric company offering gold bonds at a price to net four and a half. He read it through once and then read it through again. It contained a great many figures–figures running into the millions, whose effect was to make twenty-five dollars a week shrink into insignificance. On the whole, it was decidedly depressing reading–the more so because he did not understand it.

He wondered what Miss Winthrop did when she was tired, where she lived and how she lived, if she played bridge, if she spent her summers abroad, who her parents were, whether she was eighteen or twenty-two or – three, and if she sang. All of which had nothing to do with the affairs of the company that wished to dispose of its gold bonds at a price to net four and a half.

At twelve Miss Winthrop rose from her machine and sought her hat in the rear of the office. At twelve-five she came back, passed him as if he had been an empty chair, and went out the door. At twelve-ten he followed. He made his way at once to the restaurant in the alley. She was not in the chair she had occupied yesterday, but farther back. Happily, the chair next to her was empty.

“Will you hold this for me?” he asked.

“Better drop your hat in it,” she suggested rather coldly.

He obeyed the suggestion, and a minute later returned with a cup of coffee and an egg sandwich. She was gazing indifferently across the room as he sat down, but he called her attention to his lunch.

“You see, I got one of these things to-day.”

“So?”

“Do you eat it with a fork or pick it up in your fingers?” he asked.

She turned involuntarily to see if he was serious. She could not tell, but it was a fact he looked perplexed.

“Oh, pick it up in your fingers,” she exclaimed. “But look here; are you coming here every day?”

“Sure,” he nodded. “Why not?”

“Because, if you are, I’m going to find another place.”

“You–what?” he gasped.

“I’m going to find another place.”

The sandwich was halfway to his lips. He put it down again.

“What have I done?” he demanded.

She was avoiding his eyes.

“Oh, it isn’t you,” she answered. “But if the office ever found out–”

“Well,” he insisted.

“It would make a lot of talk, that’s all,” she concluded quickly. “I can’t afford it.”

“Whom would they talk about?”

“Oh, they wouldn’t talk about you–that’s sure.”

“They would talk about you?”

“They certainly would.”

“What would they say?”

“You think it over,” she replied. “The thing you want to remember is that I’m only a stenographer there, and you–well, if you make good you’ll be a member of the firm some day.”

“I don’t see what that has to do with where you eat or where I eat.”

“It hasn’t, as long as we don’t eat at the same place. Can’t you see that?”

She raised her eyes and met his.

“I see now,” he answered soberly. “They’ll think I’m getting fresh with you?”

“They’ll think I’m letting you get fresh,” she answered, lowering her eyes.

“But you don’t think that yourself?”

“I don’t know,” she answered slowly. “I used to think I could tell; but now–oh, I don’t know!”

“But good Heavens! you’ve been a regular little trump to me. You’ve even lent me the money to buy my lunches with. Do you think any man could be so low down–”

“Those things aren’t fit to eat when they’re cold,” she warned him.

He shoved his plate aside and leaned toward her. “Do you think–”

“No, no, no!” she exclaimed. “Only, it isn’t what I think that matters.”

“That’s the only thing in this case that does matter,” he returned.

“You wait until you know Blake,” she answered.

“Of course, if any one is to quit here, it is I,” he said.

“You’d better stay where you are,” she answered. “I know a lot of other places just like this.”

“Well, I can find them, can’t I?”

She laughed–a contagious little laugh.

“I’m not so sure,” she replied.

“You don’t think much of my ability, do you?” he returned, somewhat nettled.

She lifted her eyes at that.

“If you want to know the truth,” she said, “I do. And I’ve seen a lot of ’em come and go.”

He reacted curiously to this unexpected praise. His color heightened and unconsciously he squared his shoulders.

“Thanks,” he said. “Then you ought to trust me to be able to find another lunch-place. Besides, you forget I found this myself. Are you going to have an éclair to-day?”

She nodded and started to rise.

“Sit still; I’ll get it for you.”

Before she could protest he was halfway to the counter. She sat back in her chair with an expression that was half-frown and half-smile.

When he came back she slipped a nickel upon the arm of his chair.

“What’s this for?” he demanded.

“For the éclair, of course.”

“You–you needn’t have done that.”

“I’ll pay my own way, thank you,” she answered, her face hardening a little.

“Now you’re offended again?”

“No; only–oh, can’t you see we–I must find another place?”

“No, I don’t,” he answered.

“Then that proves it,” she replied. “And now I’m going back to the office.”

He rose at once to go with her.

“Please to sit right where you are for five minutes,” she begged.

He sat down again and watched her as she hurried out the door. The moment she disappeared the place seemed curiously empty–curiously empty and inane. He stared at the white-tiled walls, at the heaps of pastry upon the marble counter, prepared as for wholesale. Yet, as long as she sat here with him, he had noticed none of those details. For all he was conscious of his surroundings, they might have been lunching together in that subdued, pink-tinted room where he so often took Frances.

He started as he thought of her. Then he smiled contentedly. He must have Frances to lunch with him in the pink-tinted dining-room next Saturday.

That night, when Miss Winthrop took her place in the Elevated on her way to the uptown room that made her home, she dropped her evening paper in her lap, and, chin in hand, stared out of the window. That was decidedly unusual. It was so unusual that a young man who had taken this same train with her month after month, and who had rather a keen eye for such things, noticed for the first time that she had in profile rather an attractive face. She was wondering just how different this Pendleton was from the other men she met. Putting aside for a moment all generalizations affecting the sex as a whole, he was not like any of them. For the first time in a long while she found herself inclined to accept a man for just what he appeared to be. It was difficult not to believe in Pendleton’s eyes, and still more difficult not to believe in his smile, which made her smile back. And yet, if she had learned anything, those were the very things in a man she had learned to question.